Inside Out 2: The spot-on tussle between Joy & Anxiety

I saw Inside Out 2 on last Friday and being the sequel of one of the most creative movies ever made, I did go with a lot of expectations. It began by taking us to Riley’s teenage years, connecting with the previous movie using the Ice Hockey storyline. Riley is at the cusp of finishing middle school and this is the mid way phase between, the critical period which will pave the trajectory of her teenage years and give clues to who she will become.?

And the creators of the movie have caught it spot on, that this young confident child with a healthy self belief entering the tumultuous teenage years will have her self belief shattered. The movie beautifully captures the idea of self belief and how it is built on core memories which get seeded deeply to define us. And as the expectations of the world around us change, our bodies change, these core memories also change and expand, bringing a shift in how we see ourselves.

I resonated deeply with this because I remember myself in Grade 5, and I was a confident and happy person. And yet when memories of Grade 6 tumble in, I remember thinking of myself as someone whose academic performance suffered, who couldn’t catch up with her friends on conversations about boys and more interestingly, how both these created a belief of not being good enough in how I looked physically and my own capabilities. And that self belief of not being good enough took root in me at that turning point and it has taken the last 15 years of my adult life to overcome that negative self belief.

The final act of Joy being called as the response that Riley chose for herself is both inspiring and telling. As we grow older, we can choose to respond, we can choose the emotion to respond with, whether it be joy, fear, sadness or anxiety. The choice is ours to make. I could also relate to the storyline which describes how the same activity that gives us joy will be the one bringing in anxiety. It is a common trope and powerfully used in the movie.?

The activity we pick up as children because it brings us joy, and then because we start focusing on how the world perceives our relationship with the given activity and their expectations weigh down on us, our relationship with some of our most cherished activities changes. Riley played ice hockey because it brought her joy, and as making it to the ice hockey team becomes the superseding goal, joy gets replaced by anxiety. I can clearly remember when this happened to my relationship with writing. As a child and teenager, I wrote because it brought me joy, I loved being able to express myself in words. However, while pursuing literature, when the same task of writing became associated with grades and fitting in within the accepted structures, writing made me anxious. I was no longer only writing to express myself but writing to succeed and do well.? And this happened despite the privilege of having tenacious professors who were supporting me in improving my writing, their feedback was encouraging and helped me to use my writing to argue and establish my thoughts better. But the association between writing and grades made me drive away joy. Further during my masters’ the relationship between anxiety and writing strengthened further because now I was using writing to convey complex ideas and writing became the evidence to judge my intelligence. The joy within me further withdrew and for many years, I gave up writing all together because the association with anxiety had become too strong.?

And today, I want to consciously break that association. Writing is a powerful tool and it is also a joyful exercise. Instead of only focusing on the end product, I want to bring back the hidden joy of the process of writing. And when the scenarios play out that my writing will not be good enough and people will judge me, I will try to remember that it is anxiety controlling and building these narratives to ensure I give my best. Anxiety is not all evil, it is there to push us harder. And being able to listen to anxiety and recognising it is only anxiety, will hopefully enable me to give it some tea and rest. And consciously I will call joy to lead me and be with me as I struggle and persevere.?